


Lost To Flames, Forged By Fire

by iceyly



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-27
Updated: 2015-02-27
Packaged: 2018-03-15 12:26:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3447134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iceyly/pseuds/iceyly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drabble Collection, pre-canon – Dueling used to be the Greatest Show.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost To Flames, Forged By Fire

**Author's Note:**

> So, I wrote most of this a while back in a fit of Xyz children feels – it was originally intended to be a meta post, but somehow it ended up becoming incredibly fic-ish. |Da;
> 
> In any case, I wasn't entirely satisfied with the result back then, so I've edited the whole thing and added at some parts – I think the flow of things is probably better now compared to the original thing? Also, I've played a bit with the formatting – tbh, I'm still not sure if that's the right way to go about it, but yeah...
> 
> Enjoy?

_{ Sometimes it’s hard (too painful, utterly pointless) to remember that once upon a time, Heartland used to be a happy and peaceful place where people dueled because they enjoyed to. In hindsight, it seems like a far of dream, but they all do remember when dueling used to be entertainment, that dueling used to make people laugh and smile and have fun.  
_

_Dueling used to be the Greatest Show._

_It was_ that _day that changed everything though; that day when the duelists of Academia invaded and attacked without warning, destroyed without apparent target or reason – they hunt, they take, they laugh and laugh and laugh as the citizens of Heartland fall one after another, as a city once filled with laughter and happiness is left in ruins and reigned by terror and fear._

_There are only so few who survive, scattered and scared in the ruins of their hometown, disorganized and confused by this attack from out of nowhere, by the fact that there are people who duel so cruelly, who do not care for anyone’s rules but their own:_

_There are no rules but the rules of duel and even those are flexible._

_There is strength and there is strength in numbers. There is no need to hold back when you have both._

_The fate of the loser is annihilation. }_

 

Shun just barely survives the first time he is forced to duel one of Academia, eyes wide and hands shaking as he asks ‘why’. Dueling like this feels all wrong, makes his gut twist in horror and disgust, makes him want to fall to his knees and throw up.

By the time of duel three, his hands are steady and he no longer wastes any thoughts on whether this is the right way to duel.

It just is.

Years later, he doesn’t have time to question the morals of what he does or mourn what has been lost – defeats means agony, might as well mean death and Resistance cannot afford to lose anymore people than they have. Still, sometimes in the late night, Shun stands guard and sees the skyline that has long fallen, hears the echo of carelessness and ease that has long left this world. At times like that, he wants to curse his memory, the flawless recall of how things used to be, of faces seen in specific corners and places – once filled with joy and laughter, turned withdrawn and jaded in the best of cases (sealed into the face of a card in the worst).

Time has taught him that there is no such thing as bitter-sweet memories – there is only bitterness and despair and the only way not to break over either is to forge both into steeled will and iron strength to strike upon the enemy, so Shun keeps looking and remembering, because bitter as it may be, his memory is one thing Academia cannot take from him.

 

_{ It takes a while until they fully comprehend just what they are up against – the first few weeks they are hunted, called prey, called scum, called weaklings, called dozen of names, but never what they really are; they are humans, they are duelist, they did nothing to provoke this war, they were unaware of anything outside their own affairs, so why,_  why _– and with every day that passes more people are lost._

_They start banding together, start grouping in abandoned homes, rotating through the city, never staying longer than a few nights. }_

 

The very first night after, Ruri curls beneath her brother’s arm, dirty fingers digging into his torn shirt, tears running down her cheeks as she buries her face in his chest in order to muffle any sobs of fear and the horrors the day and the duels they had been forced into have brought upon them and she is eternally grateful when Shun tightens his grip, allowing herself an illusion of safety for a few, precious seconds. They both know it’s a lie; they have nearly lost each other today and they already know for certain: tomorrow won’t be any easier.

Neither of them sleeps much that night – they are too wound up, too hungry, too cold, too afraid to sleep and the hours they do manage are filled with nightmares.

A few weeks later, they have mastered the ability to sleep in whatever convenient space available and the nightmares have stopped touching them – sleep is too precious to be lost to meaningless images and anyway, they are already living their worst nightmares waking.

Nowadays, Ruri sleeps back to back with Yuuto while Shun keeps watch, one hand tight around her bracelet – a precious present from their parents, the last token from the lives they used to have that’s been left to her – the other around her duel disc.

Tomorrow the scattered fractions of Resistance will meet and she will learn just how many of their comrades have been lost, how many have fallen to the enemy since the last time they had gathered. To think that they haven’t lost anyone would be an illusion that they cannot afford to indulge, but right now she is blessed knowing her brother and their best friend safe, to have them close and that is all assurance she needs.

 

_{ They start to take spoils from duels won – duel disks and other gear, food and water rations, but never cloths because even hunted as they are, the Resistance still has pride and announces it in bright red fabric. They will never hide or deny who they are before Academia._ _  
_

_It makes most of them grit teeth at using Academia’s disk model instead of their own – but war can only be won through sacrifice, and that particular piece of pride is a small price to pay._

_It only lasts until one of their own figures out how to configure their old disks to do as that of Academia does – to make Solid Vision into matter, to seal away the enemy just like they have sealed too many of their comrades and when she manages, they all realize that this is why their counter attack – their rebellion – truly begins. }_

In another life, she used to be in Shun’s parallel class, quiet, shy and not much of a duelist at all.

Shyness has given way to steeled will and iron strength though, as it has for them all, because that’s the only way to survive.

"I do what I do best", she tells him as she puts the finishing touches on the upgrades of his duel disc that will allow him to steal the souls of his opponents. "So that you can do what you do best."

And neither of them will ever feel any regrets for that.

 

_{ For a moment it feels that maybe the tide has turned, maybe they do have a fighting chance – slowly but surely they start to take more of Academia’s numbers and lose less of their own._ _  
_

_It’s a bloody path – their city is a war zone, a battlefield, and every duel is hard and brutal._

_Duel is a fight for survival, each and every time, but if there’s anything Resistance has specialized in, it’s just that. }_

Dark Rebellion tears through opponent after opponent, angry and merciless, roaring loud as claws and teeth are stained with blood and Yuuto swallows down the horror. He will do what must be done.

Once, Ruri and Shun find him after a bout against an endless seeming number of Academia soldiers, knees on the ground as he breaths heavily and stares at the destruction he has wrought, shivering faintly – not even he is entirely sure what just happened. The last few minutes are a haze to him, a rush of near unearthly fury and rage that did not quite feel like his own.

He flinches when Ruri touches his shoulder, hands clenching as he finally averts his eyes from the sight before him and whispers: "I don’t want to hurt anyone anymore."

He is grateful as he gets lost in the reassurance of her hug, barely aware of Shun’s presence even as the other steps forward and cleans up the scene, putting away another half dozen cards of captures, until Shun tells them to get up and moving.

It’s too dangerous to linger long, even for a moment of comfort.

 

_{ They know it’s desperate and treacherous longing that makes them hope for a prisoner exchange – the cards of their people against the cards of Academia’s – but they can’t give up, they need to try at very least._

_Even if they are taken, even if they are far, far out of their reach... Resistance won’t ever abandon their own._

_That's what they've sworn to themselves at the very start. }_

 

The gambit fails and Ruri is lost – ripped from them by a pawn that wears Yuuto’s face.

Yuuto leaves when they stumble across the badge while Shun fights and searches until he has a name, a target to go with it and takes that through the portal to a world that is not a battlefield.

Not yet.

\--- _FIN_ \---


End file.
